


The Dream Job

by WowItsAlmostLikeICare



Category: Inception (2010), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Post-Inception, Post-Movie: The Old Guard (2020), Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:27:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27041986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WowItsAlmostLikeICare/pseuds/WowItsAlmostLikeICare
Summary: The problem wasn’t them dying in a dramatic hail of bullets. No, the problem was, that some inordinate amount of time later, they woke up. Arthur thought that Eames’s“Bloody, buggering fuck!”summed up the situation rather nicely.Or! Arthur and Eames are killed on a job but come back. The Old Guard wanted a break, a chance to relax but what they got were two newbies. And all Booker wanted was to sleep, drink and sulk, in that order, but said newbies won’t let him.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Arthur & Eames (Inception), Arthur/Eames (Inception), Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 15
Kudos: 87





	The Dream Job

**Author's Note:**

> This has no beta, and not been proof-read and is very cringe in some parts. But I was like fuck it, might as well. Enjoy?

The problem wasn’t them dying in a dramatic hail of bullets. No, the problem was, that some inordinate amount of time later, they woke up. Arthur thought that Eames’s _“Bloody, buggering fuck!”_ summed up the situation rather nicely.

+

They had been working a simple extraction on a low-level mark, someone not wholly important but, through some instance of misguided fate had seen something they shouldn’t have. Their employer was offering an exorbitantly large sum of money, enough to hire the best of the best.

That should have been his first clue.

As it were, Arthur was to drunk on the heady sensation of seeing Eames again, the murmured _“Hello darling”_ on the phone when he’d rung to say that he was leaving their apartment in Venice now, his steady presence by his side as he went through the information with the rest of the team for the job.

Of course they still bickered, sniping at each other, tearing holes into their respective ideas, ribbing, poking, prodding, looking for exploitable weaknesses. And it was fine, more than fine.

Their architect had side-eyed them a little, their extractor looking a little worried as they continued picking. But, Arthur and Eames were the best and so they they let it slide. Besides, with the other there to shoot down ideas, to constantly point out the faults with their work, what was allowed into the final plan was exemplary, fail-proof.

Although this time, it wasn’t enough.

+

Their architect, a young slip of a thing, was the first to die, blood bubbling up in his mouth as a bullet tore through his chest, spraying fluids, liquid seeping out between the fingers of their chemists hands as he tried to stem the flow.

Arthur was shooting, taking down man after man, Eames posted as look out, rifle locked and ready for even the smallest of signs that Arthur was struggling to hold the forces at bay. There wasn’t one, of course.

Their chemist was babbling, panic making his voice high and reedy as he attempted to stop, stop the flow of time and bring back the young thing lying, cooling, on the ground.

Arthur could hear Eames low voice, murmuring soothing words. He could make out his figure in his peripheral, coaxing the distraught chemist to his feet, urging him to be ready to run.

Arthur took down the final one and barked out an order for them to move, shoulder injured in their initial flight, flaring with pain.

Eames came up by his side, from a hit in the thigh, sandwiching the chemist between them, swinging his rifle around to cover Arthur’s back as Arthur took the lead.

They had been betrayed, after the job had come to a close, when they were packing up the equipment and preparing to enact their plans to disappear. Eames and Arthur would be leaving together, of course.

It was then that the door of the warehouse had been kicked down.

Arthur and Eames had reacted instantly, weapons up and already firing. They had stood in front of their team blocking them, when Arthur had noticed how unusually quiet their extractor was being. The dots were connected. Too late.

A smoke-grenade was rolled in, a proper military one, and Arthur had been forced to drop and dive for cover, keeping track of Eames doing the same on the far side.

The smoke had barely cleared, before bullets had begun to pierce the air, a torrent sweeping high and low. Arthur had crawled, ears ringing, over to the cowering extractor. She’d been mumbling a litany of what sounded like apologies interspersed with prayers. Arthur had looked at her coldly for a moment before he’d placed his gun against her head and squeezed the trigger. The shot had gone unnoticed in the room, the extractors death equally so.

He had then pushed himself further up and continued moving across the ground as low as possible to where Eames had been lying, hand pressed to wounded thigh, with the other two on the team. The architect had turned wide eyes onto him, breath coming in short, panicked bursts. Eames had groaned from where he’d flung himself.

Arthur had shouted for them to move, pushing himself to his feet and returning fire, ruthlessly pushing past and ignoring his worry, Eames standing, covering him, returning his own. The two others had hurriedly made they’re way down to one of their back-up exists. Arthur made a sound of irritation at their stupidity. The extractor would have know about it. He remembered the amused look Eames had sent him, his opinion of their teammates must have been showing on his face.

He’d turned, Eames coming up to take his place, and hurried over to the two newbies and quickly motioned them over to a side panel no one else had known about. His own emergency exit.

Eames followed him backwards, still calmly returning fire.

Arthur’d shoved the two out of the opening and covered Eames as he ducked inside before shutting the exit.

At some point in their hasty get away they’d been cornered, well and truly cut-off. It was then that Arthur and Eames had both noted the insignia, weapons, vehicles, clothes, of the men they had killed. Put it all together. Military. Government sanctioned execution it seemed.

And so that’s where they were now, awaiting it all in an abandoned building. A final stand, Arthur couldn’t help but snort bitterly to himself.

They backed out of the room, turning down one of the many corridors of the abandoned building, resembling a hotel, they’d fled to, after the tires of their car, along with their architect, had been shot out.

Their chemist’s hands were shaking around the gun, grip all wrong and it wouldn’t surprise Arthur, if he ended up shooting himself in the panic, instead of their enemy.

They turned another hallway, coming to a dead end. Arthur cursed. The sound of footsteps following closely behind dispelled any thought of them being able to backtrack and take a different route.

Eames pointed to one of the doors along the corridor, claiming, in that morbid humour of his that Arthur loved, that it would be _“as good a place to die as any, darling.”_

Arthur murmured his agreement, a quiet _“better than some boring hotel-esque corridor,”_ that had Eames barking out a genuine, if slightly hysterical, laugh that soon tapered off into an amused smile.

They both turned, in perfect sync, to the door. The chemist didn’t follow.

Arthur couldn’t quite find it within himself to care, in all honesty feeling a small flicker of satisfaction that he and Eames would be alone in this.

Eames closed the door softly behind him, taking in the room with a smile still curving on those damn-kissable lips.

Arthur took his arm, pulled him deeper into the empty confines of the space, and pressed himself up against him, tucking his head under his chin.

Eames returned the embrace, crooning his name as his arms tightened around Arthur’s back, pulling and pulling, until the two of them seemed so inexplicably tied together that they couldn’t tell where one began and the other ended. Just EamesandArthur.

 _“I love you,”_ Arthur said.

And then repeated it again and again in all the languages he knew, Eames echoing him.

He felt a small curl of anger, anger at the fact they were going to die here, in some abandoned hotel, after a betrayal on what should have been an easy job. That they’re legacy would end here, of all places. 

That Arthur wouldn’t wake on those cold Paris mornings with Eames, the heated furnace, pressed up against his back, that he’d never again be able to walk the streets of Firenze, listening to Eames’ elected recital of all the art and statues and buildings, interspersed with scandalous titbits he’d learned about the designers, artists, themselves, all to make Arthur laugh.

Anger, that he’d never again be able to listen to Eames’s drunken rambles about the flaws of Dom’s questionable character, about the utter boringness that was most Renaissance portrait works, about the way Arthur smiled, about his _“fucking dimples, I swear, they should be considered a work of art Arthur.”_

And how Eames would flirt with everyone, but only ever call _him_ darling.

 _“Arthur, darling,”_ those words triggered a Pavlovian response in him. 

In return Arthur would only smile for him, his actual smile, not the fake one he put on for employers or the other for people they worked with, not even the one he reserved for Dom that he never used anymore, not since he’d made them go under without telling them all the details, not trusted them, not trusted _him_ and subsequently put their lives at risk, put _Eames_ life at risk.

And if Dom had been anyone other than Dom, Arthur wouldn’t have hesitated to kill him right there and then, send him down, trapped, in Limbo. 

And when Arthur had awoken, he would have waited a few minutes, just a few more, before putting a bullet in Dom’s head, leaving him to the tender mercies of his own mind collapsing in on itself for a longer while.

As it were, he had to focus instead on getting everyone out safely, leaving a separate direction from Eames, before the two met up again in Spain, getting ridiculously drunk and ranting about Dom. Wherein then Eames fucked his brains out and held him afterwards as he cried. 

The two of them had decided then, not to be separated for a while yet, to only take jobs they were aware the other was taking, or manipulate it so that they could. 

Arthur and Eames, together, might just about know everyone in dream sharing. Arthur considers it his job to be informed about all of them. 

And, if some he doesn’t like attempt to join, if the governments, spies, agencies, try to encroach on dream sharing, try to wedge a foot between the doors of their world, try to pass that threshold? On what he considers, rightly, to be his territory? Well, his reputation for terrifying ruthlessness doesn’t extend solely to how he runs his teams. No, he has amassed a large fortune and where that fails, a larger amount of favours owed to him, not to mention his own lethality. Those not welcomed don’t last long.

And so it was that they were together, here. 

“Here at the end of all things,” he said softly into Eames’s chest.

“We always knew it’d end like this, darling,” Eames replied, voice equally soft.

And it was true, they did.

They lived life hard, hot, fast, adrenalin filled chases, no regrets. Everything came to an end. Arthur had no time for hysterics.

“Tell me a story, I know you want to,” he said.

Eames gave a thoughtful hum.

“Once, there was a young boy.”

“Isn’t there always?”

“Hush you. So, once there was a young boy. His parents died when he was a child, too long ago for him to have any memory of them, and he lived with his grandmother, a wonderful, if forgetful woman.

And so this boy grew up fairly well, achieved wonderful academic scores but, to the horror and shock of those around him, forfeited university in favour for war.

He trained, there, for a while, joining the special unit, and true to form, became the top, the best. Because of this he was chosen to do something else, something no one had ever heard of or could even fathom. Something straight out of the myths and legends of old.”

The footsteps were closer now, Arthur could hear the shouts of men talking over radios.

“There, he met a charming Englishman and fell deeply in love.”

“Really Eames?”

Eames ignored him, continuing.

“The two of them, though, caught wind of ill news. The people they worked for wanted to dissolve the lucrative project, suddenly wary of all the things this sort of work could do, all the secrets that could be unburied, secrets that they feared coming to light. Their solution? Execution, betrayal. But the boy and his love survived, walked out of that burning chaos, with stolen goods in hand, triumphant grins.

They died that day and were reborn. The boy renamed Arthur, who worked in myth and legend.

They separated for a while, to find their own feet in the new, illegal world that was starting.

And they would still at the end of the day, return to each other through it all.”

Arthur heard a shot from outside their door, could faintly make out the chemist’s voice, filled with pain.

“Until one day, too injured, too cornered, they would pause, look at each other, and know.

The boy, now man, he asked his love to tell him a story.

And what could his love give him? He could speak of the mountains, of the stars, the ocean, the natural wonders of the world. He could speak of tale after tale of lyrical stories, created in years gone by. 

But by far the most beautiful thing his love knew was the man and so, with no mirror to show him his face, no time to speak about all he loved, to show this, he simply had to make do with a story of life.”

Arthur looked up at Eames, a smile on his face.

“Sap,” he chided, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth.

There came another shot. A bang, at the door.

Arthur grinned, stepping away from Eames, lifting a rifle stolen from one of the dead. Eames returned his grin, raising his own rifle in response.

They opened fire on the door, just as it opened.

They would take as many of these bastard out as they could.

In the end, Arthur fell first, a bullet to the arm, the shoulder, the chest. 

A shout. A cry. A thud. A body next to his.

+

And then they died.

+

And then they came back.

+

Four hours later and every man that had been on, known of, or ordered that mission was dead, dream sharing fading back into obscurity once more. 

Eames had some rather strong ties to a few contacts in some mafia. All it had taken were a few quick calls and the fact that the mafia had been more than delighted to have been granted the opportunity to take the men out, some of whom had been preparing to muscle in on their territory. They’d put Arthur’s given information on the now dead men to good use.

After some more digging, hacking into several databases, Arthur had found out why their extractor had betrayed them and how he’d missed it.

The woman had only decide to do so an hour before their job’s completion, thinking rather foolishly that with them gone she’d take the whole cut. Unfortunately she had gained the attention of a rather determined man that wanted nothing more than to wipe out as many dreamers as possible. 

Greed, it all led back to greed.

The man was dead now, too. Nothing more to worry about. 

Other than of course the problem of their should-be-demise.

+

Arthur sipped carefully from the wine glass in hand, the dry red warming his stomach, back leaning against the headboard. 

Eames was laid out on his stomach further down the bed, in front of him, working out the basics for a new forge, various papers scattered around him, their miraculously surviving PAISV in the far corner.

Arthur stretched his legs out, pushing his feet towards Eames, wriggling them under Eames’s bulk to warm them up. Eames batted his leg lightly but made no move to free himself from the cold of Arthur’s toes.

Arthur grinned slightly, looking back down at his screen.

He wasn’t, unlike Eames, doing work. Still research, yes, but that of a personal kind. Trying to find out what had happened to them.

It was slow going.

A basic scanning of, well, _everything_ had proved fruitless, and he wasn’t stupid enough to call in any of their contacts for help. Not even Dom.

He didn’t trust it with anyone.

After it had happened, after they had woken up, gasping, in remembered pain, they had both reached for their totems.

The feeling was the same as awaking form a dream-death.

They had spent a solid half-hour just sitting and checking, sitting and checking, over and over again.

But no, the totems confirmed it. This, this bizarre happening, impossible happening, was real.

Immediately calls were made, business done, and by the time the two of them were on a plane to Rio, Brazil, all the necessary people were dead.

They had, using one of Eames’s many documentations, arrived, safely, if filled with a strange panic and disbelief. Both professional enough, though, to keep it hidden until they were safely alone.

Arriving, sometime later, in a small no-name villa, a safe house the both of them owned here, their walls had finally come crashing down.

They were tired, yes, but not so tired that they didn’t spend hours mapping each other’s bodies, reassuring, remembering, that the other was there. That they were safe.

After, they had both fallen, deliciously exhausted, into the dreamless sleep of dreamers.

Two days later and they hadn’t left the bed save to eat, spending the whole time wrapped up in each other, ensuring that they were never less than an arm’s length apart. Arthur had begun his research right away, falling into the familiarity of it, taking his notes, filling his book, using it both as a crutch and a way to forget about what had happened.

Similarly Eames was using his own coping method, creating elaborate people, hoaxes, new things out of imagination, paper and pen.

Arthur rubbed his temples, a headache forming between his temples. And froze.

He placed his glass on the small table at his side before focusing fully on his screen. Where was it—there!

He followed it through, taking fast notes in shorthand with one hand, the other typing quickly. He had it—had it—yes!

A video.

It was grainy, footage from some sort of security camera, a black and white video, dated in the bottom most corner. He zoomed in slightly, squinting at the small numbers. It looked to be taken about five years ago.

Now, why would someone go to all that trouble to get rid of such a small video?

At its centre were four people, and though the image was blurry, he could clearly make out that they were heavily armed, with guns and what, iron closed inspection, seemed to be swords of some kind.

He pressed play. And stilled again.

The people on screen were hit again and again, bodies shaking from the force of the impacts. But that wasn’t what shocked him, no. What surprised him, that caused tension to fill his very bones, was that the people rose again.

He must have made a sound because Eames was pushing himself up and moving to where Arthur sat. The forger pulled Arthur into him, concern clear on his face. Arthur indicated the laptop balanced across his knees.

Eames took the laptop out of his hands and played the video. Then paled.

He pressed his face into Eames’s chest, wanting to disappear, if only for this small moment, to take even this small break, this peace, to hide from what had happened to them, what it meant just for the moment.

Eames gave a stuttering sigh, dropping his head down to rest against Arthur’s.

They sat there in silence for a moment before Arthur visibly pulled himself together.

“Back to business,” he said.

Eames made an amused sound but didn’t move.

“Eames, I am going to need my work back now.”

Silence.

Arthur frowned up at his partners grinning face.

“Eames.”

“Arthur.” The forger mocked.

Arthur narrowed his eyes.

“I’ll give you one chance to return it to me before I make it hurt.”

“Oh darling, how you wound me.”

“Laptop. Now.”

Eames relented with a great, heaving sigh, dropping the laptop back into Arthur’s hands.

“Eames?”

“Yes darling?”

“Aren’t you going to move?”

Eames pressed himself tighter against Arthur, pulling the point further an into him, slinging an arm across his shoulders. He pressed a chaste kiss to the side of Arthur’s head.

“No, I don’t think I will. I’m perfectly comfortable here.”

Arthur smiled in response before flicking his eyes back down to his laptop.

Right. Work now, play later

+

_  
The image flickered, a still shot of a scene, tinged sepia bleeding into black into white into grey. Edges of the image curl inwards, looking singed, old, and careworn, loved._

_It’s held, cradled by slim hands, a woman’s, skin a smooth dark hazel not unlike the colour of the rich hot chocolate drink Arthur buys for him and Eames at that small Venetian café they love._

_The image flickered again, blinking in and out, looking as if it were glitching, fighting some unknown force forwards, clawing its way through an impenetrable wall, a thick fog, pushing and shoving to be seen. Static._

_Another woman. She’s fighting._

_Blood._

_An axe, cutting and hacking and slicing and cleaving and—and—_

_—screaming and blood and it feels like something’s choking him, he can’t breathe—oh god—he can’t breathe—why can’t he—_

_—he—_

_—he—_

__  
+

Arthur woke, adrenaline surging through him, heart pounding. He lay still nonetheless, the only sign of his sudden, unpleasant waking, a hitched gasp. Eames was holding him steadily, a worried look on his face, blood on his forearm. Blood? Had he done that?

“Its okay, you were panicking.”

Panicking?

In Arthur’s hands lay a small blade, one of his backups. Oh. He must have grabbed it whilst he was—was—

Suddenly he was dislodged from where he was laying in the forgers arm, Eames gasping out a familiar stuttering breath of panic, sitting bolt upright in their bed as he held onto his injured arm, from where Arthur had struck him in his panic. He was staring at his wound in disbelief.

“Arthur!” He breathed, hands grasping at him. “Look at my—”

Arthur reacted on instinct. He threw a hard punch, without thinking, still hopped up, ready, from his dream. Eames, reacting fast caught it.

“Careful there Arthur. You wouldn’t want to ruin this perfection,” Eames smiles, trying to cover up the fear he and worry he felt for Arthur, “Must have been some dream.”

Dream.

Oh.

He fumbled around his bedside table, hands scrabbling as they searched for what he was looking for.

There.

He grabbed his totem and rolled it, carefully. Ok, ok. This was real. He did it again just to check. Eames watched with concern.

“You alright darling?”

Arthur gasped, breath struggling to come.

“Arthur?”

“Eames. _Eames_. I had a dream.”

“Yes?”

“No, no, you don’t understand. I had a dream Eames, a proper one.” He clutched at Eames’s arms. “I couldn’t tell. _I couldn’t tell!_ ”

“Tell what darling?”

“If I was dreaming.”

+

He sat on one of their comfy lounge couches, hands wrapped around the warm tea Eames had made for him, the man himself, facing him.

“Ok, lay it all out for me.”

Arthur nodded before frowning.

“Should I get my notebook? I mean I probably shoul—”

“Hey, hey. It’s fine Arthur. Just speak. We can write it down later.”

“Right. As you know dreamers, after doing this for a long time, can’t dream anymore. Or not proper dreams.”

Eames made an agreeing sound before speaking.

“Yes. Or if we do, it’s only relived memories, good or bad.”

Arthur visibly steeled himself, hands clenching on the mug.

“I had one. A dream, I mean, an imaginative one, if you’d believe it.” Arthur’s lips gave a small quirk, a self-deprecating smile.

This time Eames frowned.

“Yes, yes, I know what you’re not saying. But I _am_ sure.”

Eames nodded. If Arthur said so, then it was true. He wouldn’t lie about something like this, not to Eames, there being no point to do so. Besides he and Eames rarely, if ever, lied to each other.

“Describe it.”

“There was, a woman in it—”

“A woman Arthur, you’ve been holding out on me.”

Arthur glared at him, but his lips twitched upwards slightly.

“Yes, a woman. She was holding a picture. Of her family I think, or that’s what I assume for now. And there was another one. She had an axe covered in blood.”

He steeled himself, taking a breath.

“The woman with the axe, she was the same one I saw in the video. But it didn’t feel like memory. It felt like something was tearing, or—” 

“Pushing through, yes.”

“Eames, is there something you’re not telling me?”

Eames steepled his fingers.

“Well darling, as you know, forgers are more likely to have dreams of people, it’s our job after all to remember faces. So I thought nothing of it.” He fell silent.

“But?” Arthur prompted.

“But, what you described, I also saw. We had the same dream Arthur, the same feeling.”

Arthur’s brow furrowed.

“Do you think we were messed with?”

Eames shook his head.

“There’s no way someone would have been able to pull this off.” He looked suddenly nervous. 

“There’s another thing to.” He said.

“What?”

Eames, instead of answering, simply held out his bloodied arm. Arthur frowned, reaching out for it and saw—nothing. It was impossible. Where there should have been a small graze from his knife smooth, unblemished skin lay. 

“It healed.” Was all Eames said.

“Well fuck.”

+

“I have something!” he called out.

Eames appeared from bathroom.

“Oh?”

“It wasn’t easy to find. They have someone covering their tracks and doing a good job of it to. If I was anyone other than me, I wouldn’t find even a trace.” There was no arrogance in his voice, simply fact.

“Luckily for us you are you, and what you are, is the best.”

Arthur looked up from his screen and smiled.

“Start packing, we have a flight to Cape Town to catch.”

+

Nile woke up, startled, heart pounding. She could hear the muted voices of Joe and Nicky talking in the kitchen.

She thought back to what she’d seen.

It had been hard to see, barely there flashes, overlapping and twisting images. It was like looking at something through a Kaleidoscope, inverted and _wrong_. 

She was out of breath, as if she’d been a fight. It certainly felt that way. Felt like she had had to push, shove and yank, force her way through to see anything. And what she had seen. 

Someone new.

It felt impossible. She’d come two hundred years after Booker and the gang were still shocked by it. A new one so soon after?

And not just any newbie.

From what little she could make out, he’d been searching for them. And found them. It should have been impossible. Not with Copely’s help. Yet this man had done exactly that, brushing past firewalls as if they were nothing, picking up virtual breadcrumbs, all to find even a whisper of them. And he wasn’t alone.

There had been another man with him, she could still hear his British accent curling around her, the comfort it had brought to the new one, and by virtue of dreaming, herself. 

And the stranger knew, knew about his friend’s resurrection. And by default them. Andy wouldn’t be pleased.

She pushed herself up on unsteady legs and made her way to e kitchen.

Joe and Nicky were seated there, like she thought they would be, Andy further away leaning into the couch.

Their warm voices washed over her and she steadied herself, knowing she’d be breaking the easy peace and quiet they’d found themselves falling into.

They called out various greetings when they spotted her, and she found herself smiling despite the news she had to give.

She bit he lip, wondering how to start.

Nicky, of course noticed.  
“Is there something the matter, _sorellina?_ ”

The nickname sent another pulse of warmth through her, though she still frowned.

Nile sighed.

“Yeah. Look, I think there’s another one.”

Joe’s easy smile froze, Andy sitting up straight and focusing on Nile more intently as Nicky’s eyes widened in apparent shock.

“Nile, tell us everything.” Andy’s voice brooked no argument.

Sitting down in the seat offered to her by Joe, she began to explain all she had seen.

Once finished, the other sat about brows pinched, lost in thought. Nile cleared her throat. 

“That’s not all. I know where he’s headed. Him and his friend. They’re not coming to us.”

Andy gestured for her to continue. Nile braced herself.

“They’re flying to Cape Town. Where Booker is.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yikes. Hopefully it wasn’t too bad. :)


End file.
